


The Beginning of a Legend, A First Year

by I_touch_the_walls



Series: Losers' Luck [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Eventual Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eventual Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, F/M, Hogwarts First Year, Homophobic Language, M/M, Mike Hanlon Will Come in Later Don't Worry, No relationships yet, POV Alternating, POV Third Person, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Slow Sloooow, Thanks Henry Bowers, minor homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-02 03:36:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21154967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_touch_the_walls/pseuds/I_touch_the_walls
Summary: "They didn’t know it yet, but the Losers’ Club would become legendary. But right now, they were just weirdos."Edward Kaspbrak is a muggle-born wizard with an attitude bigger than his body. Benjamin Hanscom is shy boy with a crush on a girl. Richie Tozier has a mouth that runs like a sewing machine. William Denbrough wishes he could be more than his stutter. Beverly Marsh plans to do a lot more than fit in. Stanley Uris is a lot wiser than any ten year old has any business being.





	The Beginning of a Legend, A First Year

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't think the homophobic language was that bad in this, but if you think I should up the warnings/tags please let me know!
> 
> Inform me of any of those good, old grammar and spelling mistakes

All schools had legends. Good, bad, scary, or just plain weird.

Muggles had many legends they didn’t have the experience to explain. Janitors lurking in the basement with the cleaning supplies all day and night, always staring and never talking, grumbling under their breath in what students swore were latin spells. The cafeteria food looked awful but tasted like a home cooked meal, or it looked five star and tasted like yesterday’s compost, or it looked awful and tasted awful and children just had wild imaginations. There was always the good old fashion cursed locker, usually closest to the biggest prick in school or belonged to some poor kid who was assigned closest to the biggest prick of that decade. And the regular after school band practice bathroom nightmare, turning off the lights, chanting a chant, and the bathroom stalls would rattle or the lights would flicker or the sinks would leak.

But wizarding schools had many legends that could be explained and very few that were a mystery, but even the mysterious ones eventually became old hat when some great witch or wizard came to defeat the lurking monsters or the more usual—the over creative student mind. But Hogwarts still had its legends, even if they were explained. There were the ghosts, the dungeons, the Headmaster or Mistress who never seemed to age until they retired or more commonly died behind the desk with a quill in hand, and the ever odd caretaker’s scraggily cat that all entranced the young generation’s minds and were the topic of many awed conversations.

They didn’t know it yet, but the Losers’ Club would become legendary. But right now, they were just weirdos.

***

Eddie Kaspbrak’s hair was parted neatly to one side, and he had just met Bill Denbrough, a stuttering young boy of the same age who would eventually become one of Eddie’s best friends, though neither of them knew it yet.

Convincing Eddie’s mum to let him attend the boarding school had been one of the worst and best things Eddie has ever had to do.

_“But Mummy, plea—“ Eddie knew to use the childish name when he wanted something._

_His mother released the glass from her grip as she definitively set it down. So this was how tonight’s dinner was going to go. “Eddie, dear. You know how far away it is. You won’t be able to see me even on weekends. You can’t even _call_ me! How are you supposed to be safe in an old fashion place like that? There are too many risks, sweetie.”_

_Maybe calling her by that immature nickname made her think Eddie was too young to leave the house for school. He’d try a different tactic. “Ma, if I learn magic—“_

_“And magic! How foolish! How harmful!” She had abandoned her plate of sausage and potatoes. “Eddie, baby, you can’t use that to find a good, safe job. You need maths and literature and language. All that playing about with wands—you’ll stick yourself in the eye with one of those!—and owls! And flying, sweetie, did you see those brooms? You’ll break something falling off of one of those!”_

Eddie was muggle-born, and his mother was the most muggle to ever muggle. Or something like that.

It wasn’t that she was against magic, she watched those supernatural and paranormal series ever day on the telly right before starting supper; she even let Eddie watch sometimes so long as there was nothing ‘just for adults’ happening, whatever that meant. But it was the idea of _Eddie_ doing what they did in those shows that she didn’t like. Eddie got the distinct feeling that his magical education would look nothing like those bad graphics, but his mother was inclined to think otherwise.

After finally convincing her that _not_ learning how to use his magic would cause him more accidents than learning it, she finally set a date to take him to London to buy the, frankly, ridiculous (even by his ten year old standards) list of school equipment. She wouldn’t let him buy an owl (or a cat—“you’re allergic, sweetie”—or even a toad), and she almost didn’t let him buy a wand until the wand-maker pointed out that it was mandatory for attendance.

Then it was back to his little town in the middle of nowhere, left to stare at his brand-new textbooks, some as thick as his hand spread wide, his stainless steel cauldron, the immense amount of prescription pills his mother had pulled out of the pharmacy—“you’ll be away so long, dear, how else are you supposed to get your medicine?”—and a standard issue trunk already packed to the brim.

All too soon and yet not quick enough, Eddie was in the passenger seat driving back to London feeling a little foolish with his new robes on, but finally on his way to Hogwarts.

***

The train had been packed, and it wasn’t too soon until Eddie ran into someone—actually, they ran into him and promptly dropped their wand and at least three books and stepped on his foot. But it turned out to be just fine because the other boy was Eddie’s age too and after collecting the books off the ground, the boy mumbled out an apology and asked if he wanted to find a seat together.

Bill was tall and knobbly and looked like he was going to fade away any second, but he was good company. The books he dropped turned out to be about odd magical phenomenons with too many words Eddie didn’t understand, and Bill told him it was fine and that he’d teach Eddie everything he didn’t already know about the wizarding world.

When they arrived at the castle, the pair had to say goodbye, but not before Bill promised to meet up with him again, and Eddie gave a grinning reassurance that he’d do the same. After combatting the terrifying (and dirty) talking hat, Eddie found himself amongst a sea of black and yellow robes and overwhelming chatter, food of the likes he’d never seen before piling high in front of him begging to be eaten and then later dreamt of as warm sheets and a soft mattress lulled him to sleep.

Eddie Kaspbrak figured Hogwarts really wasn’t going to be all that bad. It definitely beat public school.

***

Not even a month into school, and Beverly Marsh couldn’t decide if she preferred being at home over being at Hogwarts.

Being sensible, she knew her choice. The day she would never have to go back home was going to be the best day of her life, but, until then, it seemed she would still have to suffer someone’s wrath.

That wrath turned out to be her classmates, more specifically Greta Keene and her group of rich sissies. Beverly had made the fatal mistake of befriending them her first week, only to be ostracized soon after when they asked her where she came from, and they didn’t mean her city.

_“My dad’s a muggle and mum’s a witch,” Beverly stated matter-of-factly._

_The girls ‘ooo’-ed. “Is she pretty?” Sally Mueller simpered. “I mean, you had to get it from somewhere, right?” The girls all nodded and giggled delighted agreement._

_Beverly flushed, flattered and a little proud that they thought she was pretty. “I’m-I’m not so sure, actually. My dad’s the one who, uh, raised me.”_

_Suddenly, the girls were very quiet. Beverly shivered. It didn’t feel like when people were about to apologize on her parents’ behalf that she didn’t have a mother._

_“So, like, you never see your mother?” Greta said, eyebrow raised. “She left you with a muggle?”_

_“Um,” and Beverly knew she had made a mistake. “No? Yes?”_

As it turns out, they thought (those girls did, anyway) that a witch who left their magical child with a muggle deemed the child just as worthless. In conclusion, that made pretty Beverly Marsh just as useless as her muggle father. There were other rumors that had sprung from that initial disgrace, but no one was as foul to her as Greta Keene and her pack of sissies.

_Life just sucks_, Beverly thought. But that was the way it’s always been.

***

Hogwarts was going great. Well, not really.

It was good because Bill was still his friend, even after Eddie dropped his weekly pill organizer in the Great Hall and it took ten painstaking minutes to pick up every multicolored pill off the cracked floor, and even after Eddie accidentally singed Bill’s eyebrows in Charms class. They eventually admitted to each other that it was a pretty good laugh, even if Bill was too mad to talk to him during that day’s supper and Eddie had been too afraid to pick his wand up for a few days after.

What sucked was that people still thought he was weird. Apparently, it was even weirder to take daily medication here, but his mother wouldn’t let him visit the school’s hospital wing for new treatments and Eddie not-so-secretly agreed (he had heard some very strange things about wizarding hospitals during the short months that he’d been at Hogwarts). What was the worst though, was Henry Bowers and his goons. They were so much taller than Eddie and Bill, and older and stronger too.

Eddie wasn’t new to being on the receiving end of a joke, but Henry took it to a whole other level that you just never saw in public school.

“Bowers!” Eddie snapped, an angry fist closing over air as he reached high for the pink bottle of Benadryl. “Give it back! Those are for my cat allergies, I need—!”

“Aw,” Henry cackled, waggling the bottle just out of Eddie’s reach. Victor Criss and Patrick Hockstetter guffawing over his shoulder. “That’s too bad. You’re going to have to jump for it, pussy.”

Eddie couldn’t figure out if Henry was making a joke about his allergies or his masculinity or both. _Is Henry Bowers that clever?_ He wondered briefly before he was interrupted by Bill.

“G-g-give it back, Bowers!” Despite the stuttering build, the declaration was surprisingly soft. In fact, only Victor seemed to notice until Eddie glanced back at Bill, resolutely bringing Henry’s attention to him too. Eddie’s stomach sank.

“Oh, hey there, Billy-boy, I didn’t see ya,” Henry’s voice took on a mocking, sweet lilt. Eddie’s pill bottle was still out of reach. “You should probably shut up before you disappoint your house anymore than you already are.”

Bill stood his ground silently, fists clenched and nose scrunched in determination, his gold and red tie standing out in stark comparison with his black robes. Eddie would’ve admired his bravery it weren’t so painfully obvious that they were about to lose the rapidly approaching fight. Other students were even gathering around now to watch the commotion.

“What’s a little bitch like you doing in Gryffindor, anyway?” Patrick spoke up, asking the same question they’d all been hearing for weeks now. “How’d you sneak your way out of Hufflepuff?”

Somehow, despite Patrick’s undeniable lack of intelligence, he’d managed to not only insult Bill but also Eddie in the same go. The pit of his stomach burned, and he gave a weak leap for his pills but just as quickly, Henry was shoving him back with a sneer.

He stumbled and hit the ground sending a jarring through his bones as Henry jeered, “hey, loser, instead of swallowing these,” the Benadryl hit Eddie’s chest with a thunk, “why don’t you swallow this dick?” He snickered and Victor gyrated his hips with a grin. Eddie immediately began gagging at the implications—_he probably hasn’t showered in days, that’s so disgusting, oh my god, what if he has an STI? I don’t wan’t an—_

“Hey, Bowers, if I’d known you wanted cock that bad, I would’ve just given it to you,” that voice sounded nothing like Bill Denbrough’s persistent stutter. It was overly amused with itself, and Eddie could tell the adolescent tones were on the verge of cracking. It didn’t make any sense, but people were laughing, not at him or at Bill but at Henry Bowers.

Eddie whipped his head around to see a flash of black and green robes, the same as Henry and his goons, and a pair of strong prescription glasses accompanied by a large grin.

Eddie quickly returned to watch Henry parry, face tomato red. “You better watch your trap, Tozier. Just because you’re a Slytherin doesn’t give you a free pass.”

Suddenly, in between the legs of the other students, Eddie could see a professor rapidly approaching.

“Who needs a free pass when my dick’s in your mouth?” He was laughing at his own joke while everyone else sniggered and jeered.

Whoever this kid was, he needed to shut up and _now_ before any of them got into trouble—

“Excuse me, what’s going on here?” Too soon, the professor reached them.

Everyone went silent, staring up at her with equal awe and fear. Patrick pointed at Bill but no words came out of his trembling jaw.

“Detention!” She snapped. “All of you!” There was a collective groan amongst the offending group, and the watching students quickly dispersed. “Tomorrow, my office.”

“But tomorrow’s the thirty-first—!”

“It’s Halloween—!”

Everyone complained, even Bill. Eddie just lay silently on the stone.

***

Richie Tozier wasn’t so bad, for a Slytherin anyway. In fact, he was pretty great. That’s what Bill thought.

Bill never thought that he’d be spending his first Hogwarts Halloween in the Astronomy professor’s office writing lines with half of Henry Bowers’ gang breathing blasphemies down his neck while a rivaling house’s first year sent him conspiratory grins and his new best friend glared daggers down at the paper in front of him. He never thought he’d enjoy it.

Bill had known Richard Tozier before, but never like this. They shared Transfiguration class and also possibly the most boring class of all—History of Magic—which Eddie was also in. But Richie had only ever spoken up to correct professors on his nickname and promptly fallen silent. Bill spent most of those lessons shared with Richie doodling in his own notebook or making a fool of himself during wand practice, completely forgetting Richard Tozier existed beyond his green and silver.

Richie didn’t seem to mind the rivalry at all though. In fact, he seemed to enjoy the idea of breaking unspoken rules, relishing in the sacrilege of a Slytherin-Gryffindor friendship.

As soon as detention was over, ten o’clock on the dot, he was knocking shoulders with Bill and Eddie in a rush to leave the classroom and telling them if they hurried to the Great Hall there might still be some left over pudding and reckoned that he could beat the pair of them in a race. All three took off down the corridor at his pestering, Eddie calling all the while that this detention was all Richie’s fault. He only laughed and sped up.

***

It wasn’t long after Richie met Stuttering Bill and Eddie Kaspbrak that he introduced them to Stanley Uris. Well, introduce was putting it too formally; one day, Stan was just there and Eddie and Bill accepted it without hesitation. It just felt proper, like they’d all been walking around Hogwarts together from the start, cracking jokes and complaining about assignments. It didn’t even take until the winter holidays for professors to start mixing their names up.

Richie and Stan had known each other for a long time, way back when they were too young to be trustworthy (some would still say that they aren’t) and Richie’s older sister made a job out of babysitting the two of them. Now that they were old enough for school, Richie’s sister needed to find a new source of income, and Richie and Stan were free to extract their wiles on a new enemy.

Richie alone was the planner. Stan was more inclined to listen to his professors’ lectures during the week and birdwatch on the weekends. So, Richie’s initial sights were set on Hogwarts as a whole, pulling Stan behind him in between classes to explore that corridor and peek into those empty classrooms, concocting absurd pranks that never pulled through. But eventually, his sights narrowed down on one particular group: Henry Bowers’ gang.

Henry Bowers was after Richie long before he went after Eddie or Bill by extension of him and Henry both frequenting the same common room.

_“I swear to God, Stan—“ Richie was shoving at his glasses with one hand and shoving at Stan’s shoulder with the other._

_“You don’t believe in a God,” Stan interrupted._

_“Figure of speech, jeez,” he was out of breath from talking and walking. “It was _midnight_, we were on our knees in our _boxers_, Bowers and Criss and, and, uh, ‘Belch’?”_

_Stan paused. “Isn’t that what they call Huggins?”_

_“Yeah, whatever,” Richie waved it off in favor of continuing his story. “They were all there, just fuckin’ _watching_ us. They were walking up and down in a row like, like, those goddamn soldiers in the red coats and big hats who just stand outside of, uuuuuh, Buckingham Palace—“_

_“The Royal Guard?”_

_“Yeah, them!”_

_“…They do more than just stand—“_

_But Richie was off again on his wild tale without a thought for anything else around him._

As it turned out, the Slytherin first years were _not_ hazed on their first week, as Richie’s creative mind so explained. Instead, the real (and more accurate) story buzzing around was that of Henry and his goons dropping Stink Pellets in the boys’ first year dorm three nights into the term. The resulting punishment was no permitted trips to Hogsmeade for the older boys, but it hardly effected any of the first year students, and it was promptly lost from the tale.

But Richie was, by nature, loud with a tendency to ramble before his mind caught up to his mouth, so it wasn’t long before his version of events became mixed with the original story, and news, traveling quickly, made its way to Henry Bowers' ears.

Richie would never forget waking up to find all of his clean robes hanging in the girls’ showers.

***

“So, like I was saying,” Richie adjusted his glasses. Eddie had long ago began believing he only did that because he thought it looked cool. “A ghost party.”

“No,” Eddie stated firmly, leaning passed Bill to get a look at Richie. They were on their way to the Great Hall for breakfast. “Besides, Stan doesn’t like ghosts.”

Stan did not look pleased to be brought up.

“What? Doesn’t Whatshername Ravenclaw chill out in your common room, like, all the time? Get it?” Richie nudged Bill’s ribs with his elbow. “ ‘Cause ghosts make the air around them—“

“More like she just stares out the window for a couple hours and then drifts into a wall,” despite the warm draft as they entered the Great Hall, Stan shivered. “Creepy.”

“Okay, well,” Richie gestured vaguely. “Stan doesn’t have to come to our party. Doesn’t mean we can’t have one.”

“How are you going to get the invitations out anyway?” Eddie griped. “They’d have to be, I don’t know, ghost invitations. Invisible or dead or something. Can you make a dead invitation?”

Bill was shaking his head as they took a seat, Richie filling his plate as he continued rambling. “Just word of mouth will work. When they hear I’m throwing the party, everyone will want to come.”

“Um, no,” Eddie grabbed at the toast. “Your parties are probably shit,” he had started cursing recently, courtesy of Richie and marginally due to Stan especially when he realized his mother wasn’t around to catch wind of anything. “Besides, you’re a first year, you can’t even get anything cool.”

“Yeah, like alcohol,” Stan nodded sagely.

“Also,” Bill finally interjected. “I don’t think g…g-ghosts eat the same things we do.”

“And when are you going to throw this party?” Eddie looked incredulously across the table at Richie. “Christmas break is next week. No one’s going to be around to go.”

“Stan doesn’t celebrate Christmas,” Richie pointed out.

“I celebrate Hanukkah, which is during our winter break,” Stan objected. “So I’m not going to be here anyway.”

“Did you really just forget Stan doesn’t like ghosts?”

“Alright, just rain on my parade, why don’t you,” Richie didn’t really look that put out as he poured his orange juice.

“Listen, I’m just saying, it’s practically impossible. The variables just don’t add—“ a sudden slam jerked Eddie’s hand away from his fork and all the boys looked up to watch a tall girl hastily flinging her bag over her shoulder and rushing out of the entrance. Her red hair was turning a dull gray from the roots down.

“Jesus, who was that?” Eddie asked, still watching the entrance.

There was silence before Stan responded. “Beverly Marsh.”

“What did they do to her?”

“More like what did she do. I heard she bewitched some girl and stole her face so she could be pretty too.”

“Shut up, Richie.”

“Aaaaalriiight,” Richie pushed his glasses up, using his fork to mush ketchup further into his eggs. “No ghost party for Billy either, then. It’s all up to you, Eds.”

“Don’t call me that, Dick.”

***

Beverly was mad. At everything. At Greta Keene. But mostly at herself.

She was in the hospital wing sitting arms crossed in a chair staring out the window and trying not to sniff as Mr. Keene’s wand ghosted over her hair.

“I’ll fix it in no time, dear,” he was mumbling more to himself than to her. “Don’t you worry.”

It wasn’t that Beverly’s hair was that important to her—it _was_ in the sense that she liked her kind of frizzy but mostly curly red hair, and she reckoned it was her best attribute except maybe her height—but it wasn’t worth crying over especially when she knew it was going to be fixed.

No, what really got Beverly going was the fact that she saw the hex coming and didn’t know what to do.

She could handle Greta’s sissies talking smack and saying what they could with what little knowledge they had of her. She didn’t like it and would much prefer that it never happened at all but talking was what people did, and Beverly was used to it; public school had been much the same.

She hadn’t expected them to take it this far. It had all been talk thus far, writing on the girls’ bathroom stalls (maybe in the boys’ stalls too, but Beverly would never know) that she was a face-stealing bitch. A squib. A liar. They really said that she had stolen some pretty witch’s face, that someone with a muggle father could never be that pretty. She was a fairy tale witch, green and hook-nosed and warty all over.

But today, Beverly almost wished she was. If Beverly knew how to jinx her own green face into freckles and grey-green eyes and auburn hair then she would’ve been able to stop Greta Keene’s hex.

But Beverly didn’t know how to do any of that.

***

Benjamin Hanscom wasn’t lonely. He hadn’t even conceived of the idea.

Spending the winter holiday alternating between the library, his bed, and the Great Hall had been one of the best things to happen him since coming to Hogwarts. One of the best; another best thing was about to take place in approximately an hour, and another about two years from now, but at this time Ben hadn’t even thought about the Losers’ Club (the current Losers barely even thought of themselves as a club yet). But Ben had definitely thought of Beverly Marsh, and that was the best thing that was about to happen to him.

Ben woke up to an empty dorm at around ten in the morning, stretching and wiggling his toes pleased with the heavy, warm blankets keeping out the chill creeping in from the creaky window beside his head. He rolled over and stared at the unmoving muggle comics laying on top of Eddie Kaspbrak’s made bed. It was the only familiarity Ben found at Hogwarts. Kaspbrak must’ve forgotten them when he went home for the holidays.

With one final stretch, Ben scooted out of bed and tugged on his jeans, happy to be without his uniform, and cheerfully made his way to the Great Hall. It was considerably empty save for a few professors and a couple, older Ravenclaw students sitting close together at the end of their table. Ben minded his own and took a seat at another table, filling his plate with a heap of homemade oatmeal topped with brown sugar, crisp, fatty bacon, and a big scoop of fresh fruit. That was another best thing about Hogwarts, none of the food ever came out of boxes.

Once satisfied with breakfast, he grabbed a few napkins and began filling them with croissants and assorted glazed nuts, like pecans and almonds and a few others he didn’t recognize but knew they tasted good all the same. He carefully tucked them into his backpack, which he still carried around despite the holidays, and began his trek through the corridors towards the library.

The librarian knew him well enough by now that she knew she needn’t bother with him while he read, just giving Ben a little nod and a smile when he entered through the big double doors and watched him disappear into the towering jungle of shelves, feeling a little lonely for him.

He reached the end of the library, far from anyone’s view and cornered by the restricted section. He sat his bag down at a table for two and began wandering through the shelves. Ben wasn’t aware he was looking for anything in particular until he stumbled across _A Beginner’s Guide to Pesky Hexes_ and thought of Henry Bowers. Right next to it was _Know Thy Enemy_. It was a little too perfect, so Ben reached for the book of hexes, leaving behind _Know Thy Enemy _partly because it wasn’t actually about anything useful and partly because it was too high for him to reach and he didn’t want to ask the elderly librarian to magic it down for him; he wanted to learn that on his own.

Satisfied with the large book, he shuffled back to his little table and settled in. The book itself was very enlightening and the content page very helpful, and Ben found himself peacefully slipping away in between the pages despite the overall lack of fiction; anything to do with magic was still like the work of a fantasy novel to Ben.

Just as Ben was beginning to forget the rest of the world, a voice spoke up.

“I was looking for that book.”

Ben’s eyes rolled up to meet the person and then his whole head. Beverly Marsh was standing in front of him looking very pretty with her hair pulled back and a large sweater and looking a little put out. Ben’s eyes dropped to the dusty book cradled in her arms. The spine showed _Defensive Jinxes_.

“Oh.” Ben looked down at the open pages. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she replied quietly. It seemed like she was trying to figure something out, working her tongue against a tooth that looked like it was still growing in. She began to back away from the table when Ben hastily said, “we could look at it together!”

Beverly looked up at him sharply, and it was then that Ben realized she had been avoiding looking at him. She seemed surprised. There was enough silence for Ben to begin shrinking into himself, flustered at his own thoughtlessness. Of course she wouldn’t want to read a book with him. That was so awkward. “Really?”

“Um, yeah…If—if you want to!” He hastily tried to recover. His voice kept growing quieter. “Or not…I could just—you can have—“

“That would be cool,” she interrupted him, back to staring at her feet. Her voice was soft. It made Ben’s heart flutter.

“A…awesome,” _You sound like an idiot_, Ben thought embarrassed. He stood up too quickly, chair legs screeching. “Let me move my bag.”

He could feel Beverly watched him as he snatched his bag out of the open seat and plopped it on the ground beside his own chair. He pulled the empty seat out for her and quickly thought that that was too much and let go of the chair as if it had burned him. He dropped back into his own as she placed her book onto the table with a thud.

“What’s that for?” He asked.

“Oh, uh…I guess classes aren’t moving fast enough for me,” she responded vaguely.

Ben didn’t know what to say. “Do you want to start from the beginning?” He indicated to _A Beginner’s Guide to Pesky Hexes_.

“Sure.”

He propped it up against the wall so both of them could see and flipped the pages all the way back to the preface. It was awkward at first as they both finished reading the pages at different times, but once they both realized that Ben finished reading first, Beverly took the liberty of turning the pages, and they fell in to compatible silence.

It was nice—better than nice—sitting here and reading beside Beverly, who Ben had figured would never talk to him ever not even in the next seven years at Hogwarts. He could even stop to watch her pretty eyes dart across the pages eating up the words, her elbow on the table. _Oh man_, Ben thought. _This is the best._

Beverly cleared her throat, and Ben jumped. Had she read his mind?!

“There’s a lot in this book about using the spells,” she said.

“Yeah…” Ben mumbled, heart racing.

She went on dejectedly. “We can’t really practice them in here though.”

“Oh, I suppose so.”

Beverly stopped turning the pages and an uncomfortable silence fell. At least, it was uncomfortable to Ben who didn’t have a clue what to say.

Beverly sighed, and he watched her as she turned to look out the window. It was snowing.

“Why aren’t you at home?” She asked suddenly.

“My mum is in between houses right now,” Ben explained. “She got a new job, so she’s moving further out into the country.” After a beat, he asked, “what about you?”

Beverly hesitated. “My parents are on vacation. A cruise.”

“Well, that’s cool. Too bad you couldn’t go.”

“Yeah.”

More of that dreaded silence before Ben had a revelation.

“Why were you looking for this book?” He asked her. She turned her head from looking out the window, chin still resting on her hand. “Are you trying to learn the spells?”

“…Yeah,” Beverly’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Aren’t you?”

“Oh, um…” he looked back at the open book. “I wasn’t. But I can. If you want to. I mean!” His head snapped to face her, hands coming up in front of him. “We can learn together! I’m, uh, I’m the best in my Charms class.” Ben added a little proud.

Beverly’s smiling at him now, a hint of mischief, and her body completely turned to face him. Ben felt a little bit like whatever they’re about to agree to might change their lives. Well, not that drastically but certainly something like that.

“That would be really fun, uh…” suddenly they realize they’ve spent this entire time together without introductions.

“Hanscom, Ben Hanscom,” he smiled.

She smiled too. “Beverly Marsh.” Ben already knew that, but he wasn’t about to correct her.

“Oh!” Looking for a distraction, he recalled the food he’d snatched from the Great Hall. It’d been ages since breakfast. “Are you hungry?”

“What?” She responded bewildered, Ben reaching down into his backpack to reveal the croissants and glazed nuts wrapped in napkins that certainly didn’t belong anywhere near the library.

“Hanscom,” there was put upon awe in her voice and a teasing grin. “I didn’t know you were such a rebel.” Ben grinned back, red faced, when she grabbed one of the croissants and began tearing off pieces to fit in her mouth.

***

Stanley Uris was glad to be back at Hogwarts, if only to get Richie off his back.

They lived a stone’s throw from each other (more like a couple blocks, but that was easy terrain for a pair of eleven year olds), and Richie had been exceedingly annoying over the holidays. He was usually annoying, and Stan would have a good, regular go at anyone who said he wasn’t (no one said that), but it was like Richie had been working overtime to annoy Stan; went out of his way; was _aware_ that he was being annoying. It got to the point that Stan told his mother, pleaded with her, to _please_ tell Richie he wasn’t home when he came ringing. Once, on a very snowy Tuesday (the same Tuesday Ben and Beverly had shared croissants in the library), Stanley was yelling out his window to Richie who stood in his lawn, telling him, like any good friend would, to “stop fucking bothering me! I have family over!” In spite of the fact that his mother may have been listening in on him. Richie wasn’t put out by his hollering (he never was) and came back the next day.

But back at Hogwarts, Richie’s attention was blessedly split.

Classes wore a lot out of Richie (not too much, but enough), and any pestering left over was bearably by Stanley’s standards. Within their group (Stan wasn’t sure _what_ to call them), Richie had mostly moved on to pestering Eddie, and Bill and Stan, who were the significantly more reasonable pair out of the group, regularly hit it off. Stan found all of this to be much needed relief for what he privately called Richie Aches (they were just headaches, and he’d never say it out loud, but he’d been calling them that for years and old habits were hard to break). Outwardly, he called them Richie Being a Pain in the Ass.

Like now.

“Richie!” Stan hissed under his breath. He was tired telling Richie off. “Stop that!”

Richie was currently sitting next to him absentmindedly smearing a mixture of fertilizer and crushed Dittany across Stan’s notes. The Herbology professor was still discussing the properties of poisonous houseplants.

Stan tried to strike Richie’s hand away with the back end of his quill. “Dittany’s flammable, you twat!”

“Just the vapors,” Richie sighed forlorn but stopped pushing the soil along Stan’s notes, head burrowing into his folded arms.

Stan figured he would be writing notes for the pair of them today.

Another couple bullet points into the professor’s lecture, Richie let out a long-suffering sigh. Stan ignored it. He dipped his quill into his inkwell to make a third neat bullet point when Richie sighed. Again.

Stan did not look up from his notes. “If this is about Eddie—“

“It’s _not_,” Richie informed him from under his arms.

“He would be here right now,” he continued under his breath as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “If you hadn’t coughed all over him earlier this week.”

Richie groaned this time, but the noise was ignored as the chatter started up, the students were being released from the lecture to find partners for the rest of the lesson.

Stan stood up and left his friend to his shameless wallowing, walking to the front of the room to grab another pot of undamaged Dittany and gloves. He returned to their shared desk, placed the pot heavily on the table, and began pulling the gardening gloves on.

“Actually help me with this assignment, and I might let you copy my notes and let you pretend they’re yours when you give them to Eddie.”

Richie kept his head tucked into his arm but blindly reached for the gloves with the other.

***

The first year Hufflepuff dormitory had been on a student-constituted quarantine for almost a week now. If you wanted something, you got in and you got out. At night, four poster curtains were drawn and weren’t open until the next morning when you were certain you weren’t coming back. Eddie Kaspbrak’s four poster curtains had stayed tied shut all week.

Ben had seen him only once since the quarantine looking sallow skinned under the red blotchy patches on his cheeks, hair sticking to his forehead with sweat, and looking ready to vomit. Ben had quickly moved out of his way. He’d heard Eddie though, several times. He wasn’t just hacking up his lungs (though he was doing a lot of that), he also spent a lot of time in that room yelling.

Earlier that week, a wild-haired Slytherin had stepped into their common room, bag slung over one shoulder and looking quite smug and stopped a third year on their way out to point him in the direction of the first year boys’ dormitory.

It wasn’t the first time another house had been in their dorm, and it wasn’t all that uncommon to see students bringing their friends over, but the third year did give him a funny look along with the answer; nobody ever came in alone.

The boy promptly took the directs, walking right into the quarantined room and what followed had Ben Hanscom looking up from his Potions essay to watch with puzzled attentiveness.

There was a sharp bang against the door like someone had thrown something followed by loud voices. There were two more bangs against the door and two more thuds as the objects fell to the ground. The voices got louder.

_“Eds—“_

_“Don’t call me that! Get out! How did you even—“_

_“I said sorry—“_

_“How did you even get in—I can’t believe you!”_

There was another thud.

_“I’m _sick! _Because of you!”_

_“The notes—Eddie—“_

_“You—you…! You wanker! Get OUT!”_

The door burst open with a flurry of black and green robes followed by an airborne book that hit the opposite wall as the door slammed shut, the bundle of robes flying down the stairs, backpack swinging behind him, and wearing the biggest grin Ben had ever seen.

***

Things had not gone over well since Richie had gotten Eddie sick.

Bill had seen this coming from a mile away, but he didn’t expect them to still be freezing each other out come time to take their exams. Eddie wasn’t speaking to Richie at all. Richie was trying more obnoxious tactics.

_“Can you tell Edward his paper is upside down?” Richie stage-whispered across the table to Bill. He could feel Eddie’s seething roll off him in heated waves._

_The History of Magic professor droned on._

_“Can you let Edward know his fly is down?” Richie asked him loudly outside of the Great Hall as Eddie and Bill came out of the restroom._

_“I just thought you ought to know,” Richie said as they looked for a seat in the library. “That I forgive Edward for not talking to me.” At those words, Eddie had turned around and stormed out of the library._

_Bill had been waiting at the school entrance for Richie, Stan, and Eddie after their Herbology class picking at a seam in his trousers when he spotted them walking through the fresh green grass, just too far away to be overheard as Richie gestured animately to Stan. Then Bill heard Stan shout, “I’m not your messenger owl!” And shoved his shoulder against Richie’s as he sped up to meet Bill._

“Do you think th-th-they’ll ever stop arguing?” Bill mulled over a cold breakfast. Eddie hadn’t joined them, and Richie had left for class early.

“I dunno. I’ve never seen Richie keep up an act for so long,” Stan said dejectedly. “He’s usually annoying, but he’ll still apologize eventually.”

“P…p-probably when he gets bored then, h-huh?”

“Yeah, probably.”

It wasn’t Richie’s boredom that broke Eddie’s silence.

He had recently stopped walking with Bill and Stan when Richie was with them, and he wasn’t with their group that afternoon either when they came face to face with Henry Bowers and his goons.

Through the school year they had made a habit of ganging up on Stan, Richie, Bill, and Eddie, but they were also getting better at spotting Henry before he could spot them, and they had gotten a lot faster since their first chase too. Richie, despite being the fastest of all of them, was caught the most. Bill sometimes found himself wondering if Richie did it on purpose perhaps for their sake or perhaps for something worse; sometimes he thought that Richie talked just to get hit. Bill tried hard not to think about it like that.

Victor Criss had Richie by the front of his shirt, and Henry Bowers and Belch Huggins had Bill and Stan by their arms. Bill watched anxiously as Richie’s sneakers scrambled for the floor.

“What did you say about my face, you four-eyed geek?” Victor lifted Richie higher with a rough shake.

“I didn’t say anything,” he took a jagged breath. “You should dig the wax out of your ears.” Bill wished his friend would shut up.

“You fuckin’,” Victor shook him again, and Richie looked like he was going to slip right out of his shirt. They could see all the way up to his bony ribs. “_Trashmouth!_”

Things were about to get worse, infinitely worse, Bill could tell, but just then a little, hunched figure with a heavy backpack strode right through the war zone. Silence fell as all six of them watched with wide eyes as Eddie Kaspbrak walked through them like they didn’t exist.

“Leave Tozier alone.” He muttered moodily, nearly on his way out. And he probably would’ve made it out if Henry Bowers hadn’t snapped out of his surprise and yanked him right off the ground by his bag strap.

“Eds!” Bill exclaimed. Belch tightened his grip on his arms. He felt his face pale. He knew Eddie hated that nickname, but Richie used to use it all the time and now all he called him was Edward, and maybe Bill was subconsciously missing it, but, oh, when Henry turned a mean grin on Eddie, how he wished he hadn’t said anything.

“Aw, is that what your mummy calls you?” He cackled. Eddie had been thrown to the floor with the weight of Henry’s yank, and he looked close to tears.

“No!” Eddie snapped, rolling off his butt and onto his hands and knees.

“Then what kind of name is that? Do your little boyfriends get to call you that?” He indicated to their group at large. His grin suddenly turned from mean to savage. “Do we get to call you that? Eds? Huh?”

He started making wet, over-exaggerated kissing noises at Eddie. A lot happened at once as Bill watch Eddie begin to gag. On his right, Stan struggled out of Belch’s grip with a muffled and angry, “you piece of shit—“ Belch let go of Bill to thwack Stan hard on the back of his head, and he caught himself on the ground with the palm of his hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Richie heaving up just enough to land a kick right between Victor’s legs as Bill turned to swing a hit at Belch’s face. His punch was quickly deflected, and somehow he was on his ass beside Stan, stomach throbbing.

And then it was over. Henry Bowers shouted at them, “fuck you!” As he turned to leave which was the least creative insult he could’ve come up with, but Bill wasn’t about to ask for more. They all peeled themselves off the floor once Bowers’ gang was gone, Eddie and Stan both had scrapped and bleeding palms, and somehow Richie had a black eye.

Bill made the executive decision that they should probably see the hospital wing for Stan and Richie (Eddie still refused to be treated at Hogwarts). As they all walked side-by-side, Richie seemed to momentarily forget his feud. “Hey, Eddie, what _does_ your mum call you?”

Eddie shot him a withering glare. “Shut up, Trashmouth.”

It was like they’d never argued at all.

***

All too soon, the school year was over.

Ben missed his mother terribly and couldn’t wait to see her after all these months, but he knew he’d miss Hogwarts’ winding corridors and homemade food and expansive library. Most of all, he’d miss his weekly meetings with Beverly Marsh in the empty Charms’ classroom practicing defensive hexes.

_“Your pretty good at this,” she had told him with her wand in the air and an admiring smile, out of breath from their practice._

_“Really?” Ben flushed, pleased._

_“Really.”_

He was going to play that memory over and over every day until summer was over. They made a promise to each other to keep practicing so they’d have something to show each other next year.

Yeah, he was definitely going to miss Beverly Marsh.

***

Beverly didn’t want to go home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this all the way through! Hopefully more to follow! There won't be a second chapter, but there will be a second story in the series. The series will follow the Losers through their seven years at Hogwarts and probably get longer each update as they get older; these early years are mostly background and developing their relationships.
> 
> So if you enjoyed this story make sure to subscribe to the series (Losers' Luck) for updates!


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